November 10 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Gold Hill Theatre, Gold Hill, Nevada. After the lecture Sam and Denis McCarthy were the victims of a prank robbery on the one-mile highway between Gold Hill and Virginia City called “the divide.” An all-night farewell party was promised in Virginia City. Sam and McCarthy were on foot. The “robbers” took about $125 in coin, and a $300 gold watch that Sam highly prized, a present to him by A.S. “Sandy” Baldwin and Theodore Winters [Clark 903].

October 30 Tuesday – The Territorial Enterprise announced that Sam would perform in Virginia City the following night. “We expect to see the very mountains shake with a tempest of applause” [MTL 5: 682n].

October 26 Friday – Sam and McCarthy stopped to see Meadow Lake City, also known as Summit City, Ca., the highest of the gold mining districts at 7,100 feet and the place where Orion Clemens had briefly tried a legal office. They arrived at 9 PM [Schmidt: article from S.F. Bulletin, ran Dec. 6].

October 15 Monday – Sam and Denis McCarthy traveled by riverboat to Marysville, California (named for Mary Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party). There, Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” at Maguire’s New Theatre [Sanborn 299].

October 3 Wednesday – Newspaper reviews to Sam’s talk were very positive, as witnessed by this excerpt from the San Francisco Evening-Bulletin of Oct. 3:

September 14 Friday – Sam was quoted on Captain Cook by the Daily Hawaiian Herald [Schmidt].

September 5 Wednesday – Sam’s opinion of photographs ran in the Daily Hawaiian Herald:

August 7 Tuesday – Sam continued the multi-dated letter to his mother and sister he began July 30. He wrote about seeing and identifying the Comet, another ship which had left Honolulu the same day, and which they had spotted for a couple of days. “In the morning she was only a little black peg standing out of the glass sea in the distant horizon—an almost invisible mark in the bright sky. Dead calm. So the ships have stood, all day long—have not moved 100 yards” [MTL 1: 352].

August 10 Friday – Sam continued the multi-dated letter to his mother and sister he began July 30. We have breezes & calms alternately. The brig is 2 miles to 3 astern, & just stays there. We sail directly east—this brings the brig, with all her canvas set, almost in the eye of the sun, when it sets—beautiful. She looks sharply cut & black as coal against a background of fire & in the midst of a sea of blood [MTL 1: 353].

August 6 Monday – From Sam’s notebook: “Lat. 39.54—long. 142.13—Distance 80 miles” [MTNJ 1: 161].
He continued the multi-dated letter to his mother and sister:
“This is rather slow. We still drift, drift, drift along—at intervals a spanking breeze, & then—drift again….There is a ship in sight—the first object we have seen since we left Honolulu” [MTL 1: 352].